


Temet Nosce

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Matrix Fusion, Body Horror, Complicated Relationships, Constructed Reality, Disabled Character, Dreams vs. Reality, Gallifreyan Language (Doctor Who), Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other, Psychological Trauma, The Matrix References, due to the loss of bodily autonomy, it's all a metaphor for complex trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: There's an itch on the back of the Master's head. It only gets worse from there.
Relationships: Third Doctor/The Master (Delgado)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	Temet Nosce

There’s an itch at the back of the Master’s head. 

It’s not _in_ his head _—_ he’s quite accustomed to ignoring mental itches, be they echoes of his heartbeat or jolts of empathy, even the recurring but inexplicable sense that something is wrong, but this isn’t _in_ his head.

Instead, it feels like there’s an insect perched on the back of his scalp, just above his C1 vertebrae, at the divot where his skull meets his neck. 

Barely noticeable, except for the fact that the metaphorical insect is sitting on one of the most sensitive places in Gallifreyan physiology. Aggravating, and a little unnerving.

Scratching it won’t make the itch go away, and even with thorough probing, the Master can’t find any physical evidence to explain it. No lump, no wound. Under a microscope, the hair and skin cells on the affected spot are no different than any other.

Just as the Master had accepted that the itch was simply _one of those things_ , it spread.

While he can ignore the single point of irritation, it becomes _significantly_ more distressing when the sensation exists at every sensitive point on his spine, as though something is probing at his vertebrae.

To add insult to injury, the malaise he can usually tune out becomes nearly chronic, haunting his every waking moment and sending him into insomnia-driven fits of mania that leave him cleaning blood from under his fingernails.

He marks his skin where the itch is, everywhere he can reach. It’s not random—the points are always at particularly sensitive places, in perfect circles an inch in diameter.

Aside from the points along his spine, there’s a point over each heart, at the insides of his elbows, at the pulse-point of his wrists, where his knees connect to his shins, beneath each of his ears, at his navel where the cord of the Loom was cut, between his fourth and fifth ribs on both sides, and most distressingly, at the back of his throat.

Eating becomes intolerable. He can keep water down, but only enough to keep him functioning. The caloric deficiency results in a chronic tremor and muscle weakness that leaves him relying on his cane more often than not.

More worryingly, his memory starts to suffer. When the intent to do something forms in his head, he’ll find himself having just finished the action, with no recollection of having done it. Not only things he has the muscle memory for, like TARDIS repairs, or repairing his clothes… but full-fledged _plots_. 

Once, he idly considers that he hasn’t exercised in a while, and the negligence has started to show on his figure.

He comes to on a planet he doesn’t recognize, with gravity nearly twice that of Gallifrey and a temperature higher than even his desert-adept body can bear, nearly unconscious.

After closing himself into his TARDIS’s Zero Room and informing her not to let him out under any circumstances, he curls himself into a ball and tries to think.

Something is wrong. Either with him… or more frighteningly, with the world. 

He’s examined the points of irritation, and there’s nothing to explain them. Aside from their unusual shape and symmetrical placement, the itches are just that. Itches. 

The malaise and memory issues are worrying, but the Master isn’t delusional about his propensity for hallucinations.

“My dear TARDIS,” he requests, his voice shaking in his throat. “Scan me for physical ailments.”

The scan comes back—dehydration and exhaustion from over-exercise, minor malnutrition, a flare of his usual joint pain, but nothing irregular.

Fear seeps into the Master’s chest. He shudders with it, suddenly consumed with claustrophobia.

He dives for the door, but his TARDIS, obeying his instructions with the ruthlessness he taught her, knocks him into a healing coma before he can even touch the handle.

When he wakes, the TARDIS alerts him with a low chime that he has a guest.

The Master doesn’t need the TARDIS to tell him that the Doctor is there. He can feel him, puttering around the console room, not even slightly guilty over the fact that he’s just broken into someone else’s TARDIS.

It’s the Master’s fault, really. He and the Doctor spend so much time together that they can open each other’s TARDISes with their own TARDIS keys. 

There’s no point in lying to a psychic machine—she’ll always call your bluff, and let your sort-of-husband in while you’re in a healing coma.

“—seemed quite out of sorts the last time I saw you,” the Doctor is saying, one hand burning-hot on the Master’s shoulder.

He’s blacked out again, lost the journey from the Zero Room to the console room and any conversation he may have had with the Doctor already. He can’t even remember the “last time” the Doctor’s talking about.

“Is that so?” the Master says, once his throat unlocks. He winces—despite the healing coma, he still sounds ragged.

The Doctor winces too, mouth screwing up slightly, but carries on with the conversation. That, at least, the Master can be grateful for. The Doctor knows when not to take a dental pick to his pride.

“You seemed… disengaged. Unresponsive.”

The Master raises an eyebrow. “I never thought I’d hear you admit you prefer me at my most committed.”

The Doctor huffs a laugh, but the worried line between his eyes deepens. “It worries me. You’re usually so animated, until recently. You seem nearly robotic.”

The Master opens his mouth to explain, until he realizes he can’t remember when the itching started, or what he was doing the first time he blacked out. He can remember the realization, but not any of the events.

“You’ve caught me,” he purrs. “I became tired of the limitations of a physical body, and cybernetically augmented myself. I am improved in every way aside from my vocal inflection, which remains robotic no matter my intended tone of voice.”

The Doctor’s eyes spark with laughter in acknowledgement of the joke, before playing along. “Let me see if I can’t assist you.”

Before the Master can object, the Doctor’s hands are resting on the column of his throat, index fingers coming to rest exactly on the C6 vertebrae—the ideal contact point for initiating a mental connection. 

Pain erupts across his skin.

It starts at the points of irritation, flaring up like the Doctor’s intrusion in the Master’s mind has somehow triggered the itches’ source into overdrive. 

Then the agony burrows down, as though electricity is surging along the artron in his veins, until his entire body is a web of pain.

The Master screams, but no sound emerges. His chest heaves with the attempt, hearts pounding as loud as war drums in his ears. 

Unable to inhale or exhale, he thrashes, trying to dislodge the obstruction in his throat. What was once only an itch has grown to a choking mass.

The Doctor is still holding the Master’s head. His hands have moved from C6 to just above C1, where it all began, and suddenly, the Master feels the sensation of something being torn from the back of his head.

The torment becomes so great that the Master is sure he’ll fall unconscious, but he isn’t allowed that mercy.

Heaving for breath, he jolts forward, hands rising from his sides to grasp at whatever is keeping him from breathing. His fingers curl around a tube that seems to be anchored in his throat, and he _pulls._

The thing wrenches out him, and the Master _breathes._

For a moment, he’s aware of nothing but the shudder of oxygen in and out of his lungs.

Slowly, other sensations seep in. His temporal sight is utterly skewed, and there’s something unpleasantly viscous in his eyes, sticking them shut.

The gelatinous substance is everywhere, he realizes. He’s sitting in a vat of it, naked, surrounded by cords of _something_ , the arrangement of them making him think they’re…

...connected to him.

The Master wrenches his eyes open, squinting through the slime covering his face.

The cords—thick black wires—are plugged into him. They’re anchored over his hearts, at the crooks of his elbows, to his wrists, between his ribs, at his navel, his shins…

Drifting in the vat in front of him is a tube with a mask component six inches from the end—the apparatus he’d pulled from his throat.

Terrified that he’ll find what he’s expecting, the Master reaches one arm behind him. His fingers find the cords linked to each of his vertebrae.

Lurching in terror, the Master surges forward, trying to rip himself free of the plugs, but the cords hold him fast.

Something touches the side of the Master’s face, and he cries out, until the familiarity cuts through the terror.

“Welcome back,” the Doctor says, wiping the slime from the Master’s eyes with the cuff of his velvet coat. “Sit tight, my dear, I’m disengaging the plugs now.”

The Doctor lets go of the Master’s face and turns to the control panel beside the vat. A few more keystrokes, and the cords go slack, sliding out of the ports implanted in the Master’s skin.

He retches at the sight of them, but the Doctor’s hands steady him.

“May I please pass out now?” the Master croaks, vision tilting and doubling. He’s never been more grateful to see the Doctor’s white curls and silly cravat.

“Soon,” the Doctor soothes. “Let’s get you out of the vat first.”

It takes all of their combined efforts, between the Doctor’s lack of leverage and the Master’s utter weakness, and both of them trembling.

But eventually, the Master’s feet clear the edge of the vat, and he collapses against the Doctor’s chest, shuddering, and just manages to look up at the Doctor’s relieved, eye-crinkling smile before his vision finally goes dark.

*

He wakes up clean and warm, dressed in clothes that he can barely feel against his skin, under a quilt that smells faintly of the flowers that grew at the bases of the silver-leaf trees on Gallifrey.

Slowly, he lifts one arm—it’s more of an effort than it should be, straining at every joint—and reaches to the back of his head.

His fingers press against a perfect circle of metal, with a hole in the center that he knows better than to stick his finger into.

Not a dream, then. Not a hallucination. He’d actually been—

...been _what?_ What had happened? He can’t distinguish between what he’d experienced while he was plugged in and the reality.

As if—or perhaps _actually_ —drawn by the Master’s return to consciousness, the Doctor knocks on the door.

“Master?”

The Master groans in reply, trying to heave himself onto his back.

The Doctor bustles into the room. His coat is gone, but he’s still wearing his white shirt with the ruffled sleeves and the cravat. “I assume you want an explanation. Drink some water, first.”

Too tired to argue, the Master lets the Doctor hold the glass to his lips and help him drink.

“I’ve been on Earth for the past three weeks,” the Doctor explains, wiping a drip of water from the Master’s chin. “Helping UNIT clean up from an alien invasion that, for once, wasn’t your doing. It took quite a while for me to realize that I hadn’t seen or even heard of you in quite some time, but I was prepared to give you your space.”

The Master chuckles dryly. He tries to get his hands to curl firmly around the glass so he can drink without help, but his fingers shudder and slip. “How gentlemanly of you.”

“I was discouraged when I didn’t hear from you, but I had decided I was willing to wait indefinitely, especially since I had no way of finding you, when I received a distress call from your TARDIS.”

The Master swallows a gulp of water, and the lump in his throat with it. “Oh?”

“Her distress was clear, but all she could impart to me was coordinates. I found myself there, and—”

The Doctor pauses, gritting his teeth. He sets the water glass aside so he can flap his hands in agitation. He struggles to speak past the anger flaring in his eyes.

“Show me,” the Master insists, reaching for the Doctor’s head. 

The Doctor fails to still his twitching hands, so he keeps them tucked to his chest rather than reciprocating the Master’s grip on his temples as they lean their foreheads together.

The Master watches the Doctor’s memory play out, mostly in sensations and emotion. He doesn’t need technicolor images—he knows the Doctor’s mind well enough to infer what doesn’t come across clearly. 

The distress signal the Master’s TARDIS sent out led the Doctor to a dying planet.

It was the image of terraforming gone wrong. The foreign plants, mutated and stunted, struggled to adapt to the low-oxygen atmosphere, while the native creatures, blind by nature, stumbled over the roots of trees. 

Squatting at the center of a crater from some sort of explosion was a settlement; just a collection of buildings clustered around what turned out to be a laboratory, only identifiable as such when the Doctor went inside.

There, the memory shorts out for a moment, and the Master has to coax the Doctor into sharing the rest.

Inside the laboratory, the colonizing lifeforms, who were humanoid, but had their faces hidden by the opaque visors of their oxygen masks, had—

“They were harvesting your artron energy,” the Doctor explains, wretchedly, finding words preferable to memory. “Through the implanted plugs. They had you in a drug-induced hypnosis state to keep you unaware.”

“Did you kill them?” the Master asks, and the Doctor doesn’t answer, which is answer enough. He picks up the glass and helps the Master drink.

“How did they catch me? I’m usually smarter than walking into a blatant trap.”

The Doctor shrugs. “I didn’t ask, they didn’t say. What do you remember?”

The Master concentrates. If he focuses, he can tell that the time he spent experiencing the points of itching is all a blur. That wasn’t real. Just an illusion conjured by his drugged mind, the framework in place but the details escaping.

Before that… he doesn’t know.

“I…” Panic crowds into the Master’s mind. He knows who he is, he knows who the Doctor is, but how much memory has he lost? His temporal sense is still addled to the point of utter bewilderment as far as his place in time goes—is it damaged for good?

“The drugs may still be affecting you,” the Doctor says, wringing his hands. “I was rather… preoccupied with assisting you, rather than determining exactly what had occurred. I’m unsure exactly the concoction you were dosed with.”

The Master swallows, hard, and takes a last sip of water before levering himself back down on the bed. “I suppose I shall… see.”

Despite his best efforts, his voice cracks. The Doctor reaches out, resting one hand on the Master’s forehead.

The Master reaches up, curling one hand around the Doctor’s wrist. He catches sight of the plugs on his arm, and nearly gags.

The Doctor lays hands on him immediately, lifting the Master upright and holding him steady.

Something cracks in the Master’s chest, and he crumbles forward, letting his weight fall on the Doctor’s broad chest.

He can feel the plugs in his skin. It’s worse than itching—it’s a violation. He wants to tear them out with his nails.

Perhaps hearing his thoughts, the Doctor smooths his hands down the Master’s arms. “Sleep now.”

“Stay with me?” the Master croaks, his voice crumbling at the edges. Heat pricks his eyes, trailing down one cheek.

“Of course,” the Doctor murmurs. 

It should sound condescending, worsened by the way the Doctor rakes his fingers through the Master’s hair, like they used to do for each other when they were children. The Master finds himself not only un-condescended, but _comforted._

Squeezing his eyes shut, the Master imagines that they’re back in the Academy, their beds pushed together, curled up against each other to ward off nightmares.

On a tenuous night like this, they’d take turns reading passages from their textbooks, using flashlights they’d smuggled to the dorm rooms under their robes, until they were too tired to keep their eyes open.

The Doctor’s fingers scrape across the plug at the back of the Master’s head, and the carefully crafted illusion shatters.

There’s no book. No Academy cots. No bright, endless future. Just the horrible sensation of intrusion.

“Get it out,” the Master growls, finding himself trembling in the Doctor’s arms. “I don’t care if it kills me, get it _out_ of my _head._ ”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says, and the Master surges up in his arms, fighting like some wild thing, with hysterical abandon.

He manages to lock both hands around the Doctor’s throat, before the Doctor gets his fingertips on the Master’s temples, and puts him to sleep.

*

The Master wakes up strapped to a cot.

The Doctor is sitting beside him, his fingers in the Master’s hair, stroking gently.

The Master nearly breaks his wrists trying to get out of the restraints, almost bites the Doctor twice, and does an impressive amount of screaming before he wears himself out.

The Doctor barely even looks fazed. When the Master collapses back onto the bed, exhausted, the Doctor brings a bent straw to his lips, so he can sip ice water from a glass.

“I guessed you wouldn’t appreciate an IV,” the Doctor says, setting the glass aside. “I apologize for the restraints, as well.”

The Master opens his mouth, and nothing comes out but a strangled sort of gasp. Embarrassing, if that was important. 

It’s not important. Neither is the way the Doctor’s hair is ruffled, like he’s been running his hand through it, but the Master finds that much more focal than his lack of communicative faculties.

The Doctor nods, as if the Master’s spoken clearly after all. “It’s frightening, I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t prevent it.”

The Master makes another sound, this one with a little less breath and a little more whine.

The Doctor rests his hand back in the Master’s hair. “Yes, of course.”

Belatedly, the Master realizes he’s been thinking quite loudly, and his lack of coherency isn’t stopping the Doctor from hearing the Master’s unquelled, unshielded babble of _I’m afraid_ and _please help me_ and _don’t leave me._

The Doctor has the complete upper hand. Mentally, physically, emotionally, psychically. Temporally. Morally.

He could do anything—he could tear the Master’s mind open, and the Master wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him.

Elsewhere, elsewhen, that would terrify him.

But the Master’s head is somehow both foggy and aching, he’s detached from his body except at the hated points of intrusion, and he feels about half a second from going completely to pieces. Anything the Doctor does to him will be preferable to the inside of his head.

The Doctor just blinks at him. “Master?”

“Who did this?” the Master asks, voice grating out of his throat. “Who did this to me?”

The Doctor swallows. “I don’t know.”

The Master lets his head drop back. “Don’t lie to me.”

“It didn’t exist.” The Doctor frowns. “It’s phrased better in Gallifreyan.” He speaks again, in the paradox tense. “ _The place you were held [stopped existing/didn’t exist/never existed]. The planet [became/always was] empty.”_

The Master squeezes his eyes shut. Of all the possible humanoid species, there was only one capable of erasing something from history once they were finished with it. “And, _why_ , exactly, would the Council of Time Lords be interested in harvesting artron energy? Don’t they have plenty?”

The Master doesn’t open his eyes, but he knows the Doctor is wringing his hands. He can just about guess his expression, too.

“Well, they do say that Rassilon is immortal. I always wondered how he managed that.”

The Master opens one eye. “I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you are.”

“Time Lords have disappeared before,” the Doctor says, his voice rising in something between excitement and terror. “Not often. But in the past, renegades have simply…”

“Dropped away,” the Master says, opening both eyes. He levers himself upright. “Like they’d been taken care of.”

The Doctor’s eyes are as wide and bright as Gallifrey’s twin suns. “I—”

“Who would you tell?” the Master asks, suddenly even more exhausted. “The Shadow Proclamation? The Council? We’re two renegades. Rassilon created an entire culture. What’s our word against his?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor acknowledges. He sits down again, picking at his sleeves. “Nothing.” He inhales deeply, and his mouth twitches. “I am…” he drops into Gallifreyan. “ _The situation was not ideal but it resolved in a manner I can be content with.”_ A wry smile. “You survived, my dear.”

The Master shuts his eyes again. “So I did.”

The Doctor lays a hand on the Master’s jaw, idly tracing one of the streaks of grey in his beard with his thumb, until the Master looks at him again.

Unhurriedly, the Doctor kisses him, then pulls away, stroking the Master’s hair.

“ _I know this [upsets/will continue to upset] you,_ ” the Doctor murmurs. “Y _our distress is understandable. I acknowledge that you [were/continue to be] hurt.”_ The Doctor chews his lip. Gallifreyan doesn’t have a word for ‘sorry’, so he says what he probably thinks is the next best thing. “ _It is a fixed point now._ ”

The Master flinches. The word for a fixed point, in Gallifreyan, is enough of a conversation-halter on its own, but in the personal tense…

Essentially… ‘what’s done is done’.

He doesn’t find it very comforting, but it’s true.

The Master stares past the Doctor, at the wall of the Zero Room, and thinks about the theoretical unluckiness of thirteenth regenerations.

The Doctor’s eyes widen slightly. “You don’t mean that.” He pauses, winces, and switches back to Gallifreyan. “ _I didn’t intend to overhear your thoughts._ ”

The Master shuts his eyes. “ _I am unsure how to cope with how I [now exist/will continue to exist,]_ ” he says, in Gallifreyan perpetual tense.

The Doctor reaches out, covering the Master’s hands with his trembling ones. “You survive,” he says, in English, with an empty, helpless sigh, “to spite Rassilon, if nothing else.”

The Master breathes out. “I can do that.”

After a moment, the Doctor kisses him, slow and sweet. “I know you can.”


End file.
